As a horror writer, it’s kind of expected of me that I’ll be enamored of the Halloween season. And it’s no secret that I am! But I loved Halloween long before I became a writer. Even as a little kid I looked forward to Halloween as much as I did Christmas.

The question is, why?

For a child, the reasons are pretty easy to figure out. Lots of candy. Lots and lots of candy! The chance to dress up in a costume and run around the neighborhood relatively unsupervised (at least back in my day). Halloween was the only cool …

Recently, I had the opportunity to go on a vacation with a group of friends. Five couples, and 2 of them had their daughters with them, ages 17 and 19, respectively. One day, while sitting on the beach, conversation turned to the topic of Halloween. I mentioned that “back in our day,” Halloween was very different. Sure, we went to parties, dressed in costumes, and as kids even got into our share of shenanigans on “Gate Night” or “Mischief Night.”

But even growing up in the 1970s and 1980s was a very different time than now. We had no fear …

As a writer with a strong leaning towards horror and dark fiction, it’s only natural that I’m a huge fan of Halloween. In fact, it’s my favorite holiday. The fact that you’re reading this means it’s probably one of yours as well. But I loved Halloween long before I ever thought about putting pen to paper. As a kid, it was the third-best night of the year (coming after Christmas and my birthday), and as I grew older, my love of all things spooky only grew.

However, time has a habit of changing how we look at things. While at …

Richard Christy is known to millions of fans as a drummer extraordinaire in the heavy/death/progressive dark metal categories for his work with Death, Iced Earth, Leash Law, Acheron, and his latest band, Charred Walls of the Damned. But there’s a lot more to him than just providing people with music to bang their heads (and write) to. He is also a huge fan of the horror genre, not just music but films and books as well. He has written and starred in movies, is an avid reader of novels, is something of an expert on the …

Amber Benson is known to millions of fans for her portrayal of Tara Maclay on the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE TV series. But there’s a lot more to Amber than just playing a TV witch. Besides acting in TV and movies, she’s written or co-written nine novels, several comic books, some short stories, and several scripts for movies, animated films, and Webisodes/Internet films. She’s also produced and directed films and Webisodes, sung on a soundtrack, acted in audio dramas, and provided prose for picture books. On top of all this, she’s a huge horror fan with a …

Growing up as I did in a small, rural town, Halloween was a much different experience than for people in larger towns or cities. Oh, sure, we did the usual pranks on Gate Night (or Mischief Night, if that’s what you called it), and we went around trick-or-treating until we outgrew that phase.

But there was so much more to the season.

Not 500 yards from my parents’ house was an old cemetery; so old that most of the gravestones were worn away to near-indecipherability. The few that were still readable had dates on them from the …